Reproductive Information
 
The following website is intended for use by health care professionals involved in the care of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). It is intended to be used as a guide to generate discussion and assist in decision-making with respect to family planning when one or both potential parents has a diagnosis of MS. This website focuses on preconception counselling (i.e. advice is given to assist in the decision-making process before the patient is pregnant or fathers a pregnancy). However, many of the topics are also relevant for discussion in the event of an unplanned pregnancy.
Many people with MS have had children. Many other people with MS have made a conscious decision not to have children. This decision is an individual one and must be tailored to each respective situation. This section is designed to address common issues raised by people with MS who are in the process of deciding whether having children is the right choice for them.
The course and severity of MS must be taken into account during preconception counselling. Although MS course is variable and unpredictable, an aggressive form of MS or advanced disease is a poor prognostic indicator. Virtually all of the literature to date on pregnancy and MS has focused on relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), and so the data that follow are most relevant to RRMS. However, it is recognized that people with progressive MS do become pregnant either intentionally or unintentionally. The information in this section should be modified according to the individual’s clinical course. The health care professional must adjust the information in view of the individual’s physical and cognitive ability to carry a pregnancy to term and then care for a child.
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